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Lent in 2025 begins on Ash Wednesday, March 5 and ends on
Holy Thursday, April 17. This period covers 40 days of prayer,
fasting, and reflection, excluding Sundays.
(Except for three Year A Sundays that some
Parishes may require.)
This page is updated weekly with brief
Reflections and Provisions by Elaine Ireland, Author of our
Come and See page, for each day of the
Lenten season.
 Ash
Wednesday, March 5: “Rend your hearts, not your garments” (Jl 2:12-18).
Kriah, Hebrew for “tearing,” is the ancient ritual of tearing one’s
garments to show grief. It is first recorded in Genesis when Jacob (Israel)
tears his clothes upon hearing of Joseph’s assumed death (37:34). It is used as
a sign of grief, a reaction to blasphemy, atonement for sin, or as a sign of
rejection of another. Modern Jews still pin a small piece of torn fabric to
their clothes when grieving a loved one; some still tear their clothes but do so
while standing as a sign of strength and trust in God. God asks us here to rend
our hearts but is not asking us to take on more pain. Instead, rending our
hearts is about opening ourselves up to God’s grace and mercy.
Provision: PRAY to rend your heart this Lent. This is something we don’t
like to do. We don’t want to be vulnerable, especially now when people in power
are preying on those who are seen as weak. Consider though, these words from
Oscar Wilde’s The Ballad of Reading Gaol: “And every human heart that breaks, in
prison-cell or yard ▪ Is as that broken box that gave its treasure to the Lord ▪
And filled the unclean leper's house with the scent of costliest nard. ▪▪ Ah!
Happy they whose hearts can break and peace of pardon win! ▪ How else may man
make straight his plan and cleanse his soul from sin? ▪ How else but through
a broken heart may Lord Christ enter in? ▪ Allow the Lord Christ to
enter in.
 Thursday, March 6: “Choose life, then…by loving the LORD, your God, heeding
his voice, and holding fast to him”
(Dt 30:15-20).
“Holding fast” to something suggests an anxious or important situation. (I
remember fishing with my dad. He would say, “hold fast” to the fishing rod! I
don’t recall ever losing one, but that might have more to do with me not hooking
many fish!) In Sanskrit, “satyagraha,” a word coined by Gandhi for his peaceful
resistance movement, translates loosely into insistence on or holding firmly to
TRUTH. I think this is what Moses says to the Israelites. Hold fast to your
faith, to God’s commandments. It was essential to their happiness; it is
essential to ours. But we need not do so with anxiety. Although at times, we
might feel we are holding onto God for dear life, it is in the letting go of our
dear life (both metaphorically and someday, literally) we can experience the
peace and happiness found in heeding God’s voice.
Provision: Holding FAST to Faith. Ok, so it’s not the same definition of
“fast” …or then again, maybe it is. In the gospel, Jesus talks about losing our
lives (or souls, in Greek) so as to save ourselves. We fast from relying solely
on ourselves and our own will. We deny ourselves, accept what is given to us
each day, and follow Jesus in his path of peaceful resistance. Hold fast to
faith today, and fast from following the typical path of least resistance.
Friday, March 7: “Is not this the fast I choose—to unlock the shackles of
wickedness, and loosen the bonds of the yoke, to set the downtrodden
free?...Yes, to offer your bread to the hungry and bring the wretched poor into
your house…and [your fellow human being] do not ignore” (Is 58:1-9, Hebrew
translation).
“These lines against social injustice may reflect…the dire state of Judahite
society in the early fifth century, B.C. E... [but] exploitation of the poor and
indifference to suffering are prevalent in virtually all societies, including
affluent twenty-first century America. That is precisely what imparts a sense of
timeless relevance to this prophecy” (The Hebrew Bible, Vol 2, by Robert
Alter, pp.816-817).
Provision: PRAY with the Book of Isaiah. It’s a lot to read. Sixty-six
chapters, so two a day would take you almost to Holy Week. There is some
whiplash involved, so quickly does the prophet move from the people’s abject
sinfulness to God’s unconditional love. Read it reflectively, not as history,
but as how it applies to us today.
Saturday, March 8: “Repairer of the breach,” they shall call you,
"restorer of ruined homesteads” (Is 58:9-14).
I can’t think of another descriptor that we would want to strive for than
“repairer of the breach.” But what is the breach to which Isaiah refers? Given
the context, I can see the argument that the breach is between the people and
God, but I can also see that it could as easily be the breach within the
community. When the people extend help to their neighbors in need, they mend the
breach with God.
Provision: ACT to repair and restore. One of the challenges of repairing
breaches, building bridges, and restoring homesteads is you need two sides to
work together. Often, there can be more than two sides which really complicates
things, and these varying sides can be at odds. This happens between nations and
within communities and families. Identify a breach that is causing you pain or a
ruined “homestead” that might be rebuilt. See if you can FAST from any
resentment or anger you feel. PRAY for courage. GIVE it a go and ACT. Take the
first step to extend a hand and begin the work. (As I write this, we pray for
Pope Francis and his full recovery. May God grant him strength and healing.)
Monday, March
10: "You shall not steal… lie… curse the deaf or put a stumbling block in
front of the blind. You shall not act dishonestly in rendering judgment…nor
shall you stand by idly when your neighbor's life is at stake” (Lv 19:1-2,
11-18). When the Son of Man comes in his glory, he will sit upon his glorious
throne, and all the nations will be assembled before him (Mt 25:31-46).
Today’s missive from Leviticus lists things we, as individuals, “shall not” do.
In the gospel, we hear about the judgement of the “nations.” What do you think
this means? That governments and leaders of nations will be judged, but those
under their rule won’t be? Somehow, I don’t think that’s it. (So, if we are part
of a “sheep nation,” we won’t benefit from their largesse!?) One way to look at
these two passages is to contrast the difference between personal sin and
societal sin.
Provision: ACT as if your life depended on it. We all get the idea of
personal sin, but how do you define societal sin? Jesus’ list seems to be about
charitable works, but that’s a narrow reading of this text. Societal sin
includes policies and practices that exclude others from God’s bounty, that
bring about the need for charitable works: racism, bigotry, “deference to the
mighty” (as we hear in Leviticus), injustice, denying people a place at the
table, policies that demonize the stranger or ignore care for the earth. Spend
time reflecting on societal sin, and how your actions and inaction impact the
greater good. “Your life and my life flow into each other as wave flows into
wave, and unless there is peace and joy and freedom for you, there can be no
real peace or joy or freedom for me” (Frederick Buechner).
Tuesday, March
11: “The LORD confronts the evildoers, to destroy remembrance of them
from the earth” (Ps 34).
In Hebrew, that last phrase is “to cut off from the earth their names.” I
understand what the psalmist is saying here: evil will be forgotten in the face
of good. But for me, there’s a huge caveat, expressed best by George Santayana’s
most famous quote: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to
repeat it.” In the US and some European countries, there is a rise in
“neo-Nazism.” Let’s get one thing straight: there’s nothing “neo” about it, and
world leaders who, no matter how much they deny it, are, by their words,
actions, and policies, supporting this movement. My parents’ generation, those
who lived through WWII, and, in my father’s case, fought against the scourge of
Nazism, have moved on to their reward, and it is up to my generation to honor
them by making sure the coming generations never forget. Humanity is nowhere
near being ready to dismiss the presence of evil. It is front and center right
now.
Provision: FAST from turning away. “You may choose to look the other
way, but you can never say again that you didn’t know” (William Wilberforce,
British slavery abolitionist). Oh, I know how easy it is to say, “this too will
pass, we’ve survived this before” or “there’s nothing I can do” or “someone else
will deal with it.” But what is happening now is an affront to all those with a
moral conscience, regardless of political affiliation. I encourage you to make
your voice heard repeatedly to your elected leaders. Tell them there is no place
for hatred and bigotry in our world.
Wednesday, March
12: “Everyone shall turn back from their evil way and from the outrage to
which they hold fast” (Jon 3:1-10, Hebrew). “This generation is an evil
generation” (Lk 11:29-32).
Outrage: as a noun it could be both a horrible, violent act, or the reaction to
a horrible, violent act. In the NABRE translation, I guess it’s the former: the
violence the Ninevites “had in hand.” But we know an outrageous act can easily
spark an outrageous and equally violent response. Violence begets violence,
which is why Jesus’ words to his evil generation can likely be said to all
generations. How do we work to turn back from our evil ways, from violence?
Provision: ACT nonviolently. I am a bit of a hothead. I’ve calmed down
some in these, my later years, but my outrage can be sparked quickly. What’s
interesting about our current political climate is that there are a lot of
people who are outraged, but we are not all outraged about the same things. Some
are outraged by elitism (I’m not saying, “so called,” because I think this is
grounded in reality). Others, like me, are outraged by the current political
situation and the leaders in my country. They have deceived the very people to
whom they have promised greatness (go back to Sunday’s reflection) and are
destroying democracy to feed their own egos and bank accounts. Considering
Jesus’ comment about an evil generation, let’s go back to Monday’s reflection as
well. Is Jesus talking just to the leaders or to all of us? How can we calm and
channel our outrage into nonviolent and compassionate ways to “repair the
breach?”
Thursday, March
13: “Help me, who am alone and have no help but you, for I am taking my life
in my hand”
(Est C:12, 14-16, 23-25).
Esther is scared. She is taking a big risk. Her husband, the king, is a powerful
and mercurial dude (although we hear God changed his anger to gentleness), but
she doesn’t know that walking into his throne room. She prays fervently to God
to give her courage to speak truth and goodness to treachery and evil.
Provision: PRAY for courage. It takes courage to speak out against evil.
For Esther, it could have meant death; for Jesus, it did (along with MLK,
Gandhi, recent activists in Russia, and I’m sure many other saints around the
world). For me, it is awful to see the cuts to USAID given the number of good
people who have put their own lives at risk over the years to fight illness and
evil around the world. It takes courage for us to speak out today. The threat of
violence and slander is very real. Not all of us are called to take a public
stand, but that doesn’t mean we don’t speak out, nonviolently, to call out evil
we see. This is a time, folks, when the rubber of our faith meets the road,
and that means friction; friction causes heat. Pray today for the courage to
endure the heat, to take a nonviolent stand within your community.
Friday, March
14: “If the wicked one turns away from all the sins he committed, if he…
does what is right and just, he shall surely live, he shall not die. …And if the
virtuous one turns from the path of virtue to do evil, the same kind of
abominable things that the wicked one does… none of his virtuous deeds shall be
remembered” (Ez 18:21-28).
An important thing to remember here: God sees and knows the disposition of our
hearts. This is not about “thou shalt not” sins of commission. The virtuous
person who appears to do nothing wrong may have a cold, hardened, judgmental
heart. The one deemed as wicked because of their actions may have a warm,
loving, merciful heart. (I have witnessed many times the compassion and love of
those that society looks down upon for their sins.) You can’t fool God. “You
are the ones who are offering justifications of yourselves before men, but God
knows your hearts; because that which is lofty among men is an abomination
before God” (Lk 16:15).
Provision: FAST from judgment. These words of Jesus hit me: “that
which is lofty among men is an abomination before God.” I know people who
judge others favorably based on the amount of money or power they make or have
accrued. But then, I need to look at how I judge people who judge people that
way! We all judge others. It’s human nature. Heck, Jesus did, but he judged
based on the actions rather than on the person (an important distinction; he saw
everyone as a child of God). But today, let’s each of us look at the criteria
with which we judge. How do these standards align with how we imagine God
judges? "Do not pay too much attention to fame, power, or money. Someday, you
will meet a person who cares for none of these, and then you will know how
really poor you are” (Rudyard Kipling).
Saturday, March
15: “Today, I am making this agreement with the LORD: God will be my God,
and I am to walk in God’s ways” (Dt 26:16-19, adapted).
Provision: GIVE this PRAYer a try! (I didn’t have any “GIVES” this week,
so we will go with this one!) Each morning, imagine you are making an agreement
with God. What are you agreeing to? Where might you be challenged to keep this
agreement (say, you know you will encounter “this person” or “that situation”
today)? And do this with the knowledge that God keeps God’s commitment. God will
never abandon the promises to us! Yes, we might need to “repair a breach” or two
this evening, but God awaits our return!
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